dark hours

☆even in the darkness of the world, you will still shine for sure ☆

This profound blog, as you can see from the title, is a story about the "dark times" of my life. There have been unhappy times in my life, but those weren't "dark". There was this time in my life in which I lost all of my hope and faith, and that period is what I call the "dark times" of my life.

As I've always said, I live because I have hope and anticipation for tomorrow. Without them, days would just be repeated routines of boredom, and life would be a plain cycle. I was never able to imagine life as a hopeless person -- until the dark times came.

It was around the time of exams, when I became fearful and doubtful of everything. Last year, I was able to obtain a scholarship out of luck, so this year, I felt obliged to get another one. However, I knew clearly that the standards were high -- to get into the top30 of the grade was beyond impossible. Having such pressure in mind, I put on myself way too much pressure. I knew that I was weak under pressure, but I didn't want to give up on my goal yet, and that was like me stepping into a deep dark hole.

First my fear was simple; I was just scared that I'd get poor results in the exams. The fear was so big that I started crying automatically, on and on each night. I'd come home everyday thinking that I did terribly and burst into tears for a continuous few hours. I knew immediately that I was in my weakest state, and that it definitely wasn't okay for to continue like that.

Then, I started crying so hard that I couldn't even revise properly anymore. I realized that I was destroying my own marks by doing so, and that caused me more fear, that things would become worse than they already were. I felt more helpless as I realized I wasn't able to stop myself from damaging things anymore, and that it wasn't a choice anymore. At a point, I started to realize that it was a big, big problem. Even if I ever solved it, I would never fully recover from it.

Thank god, that after tons and tons of prayers, I found the strength to finally say that I had given up on the scholarship. It took me a while to fully give it up, but at the end I did. Just when I thought the problem had finally improved, something worsened it again.

This was the most painful part, even to talk about. After my math exam, in which I was certain that I didn't even get one answer right, I broke down and cried for hours. It wasn't even the fear of losing scholarships, not getting an A or something like that. It was the fear of failing. I had never failed before, so it was so unsettling that I cried for hours and hours and hours. Crying wasn't abnormal for me; I was more than used to it. But this time, nothing was able to stop my tears anymore. Teardrops literally shot out of eyes quickly, each time expelling buckets of water.

Normally when I cry, I'm able to forcefully stop my tears by distracting myself or consoling myself, if I needed to. That time, it was as if I couldn't even control my tear glands anymore. I cried so much that I couldn't even think about anything anymore, yet tears still came out nonstop without me even knowing it. I couldn't even control it. By that time, I was already pretty drained emotionally, my brain was empty, and all I knew was that my eyes were crying for me.

I suppose it was all the sadness and worries piled up, exploding all at once. By that time, simple fears of terrible exam results had already faded away. Instead, I was worried whether I could get out of this, and scared in general because I realized how destructive I could be to myself. Rather than thinking rationally to solve the problem, I became scared of my own fears, and that became the biggest fear. I unwittingly tortured myself more.

Up till now, the problem is still unsolved. Of course, looking back now, I know that the problem was a foolish one that could've been solved easily in the beginning. During that time, it was almost like a hole without an exit anymore. I became worried about the coming days everyday, and it never stopped. It was as if I was stepping deeper and deeper into a hole; as days passed by, it became more and more impossible to save myself.

As of now, I've become calmer, but I'm sure that the impacts are still with me. Meanwhile I've been trying hard to teach myself positive ways of thinking, hopefully making myself a much stronger person before helplessly breaking down again. It was the scariest time of my life, so I must try not to let things happen the same way again.

I was reluctant to ask for any help or to share thoughts with anyone. During the day at school, I'd be able to laugh and tell everyone lightly how painful my days had been; but once I shut the door at home I had no choice but to hopelessly break into tears once again, slowly stripping myself of all hope. Because of this, I'm desperately seeking to become a stronger person and hopefully conquer it there unfortunately comes another time.

If I were to go back to that time, would I be able to get myself out of the darkness quickly, I wonder. I hope that, soon, I'll be able to answer a quick and certain yes. If I don't help myself, nobody is obliged to help me.